VIOLENT CRIMES RISING IN SUBURBS

Violent crime in the nation's suburbs is increasing nearly twice as fast as in the large cities. But suburban crime rates, on a per capita basis, are still so low that even at the present rate of increase, there is no chance that suburbanites will soon be in as much danger of violence as city residents.

According to the Federal Bu eau of Investigation uniform crime reports for 1971, crimes of violence in the 57 cities with more than a quarter‐mil lion people rose by 7.5 per cent over 1970, while in the suburbs the increase was 13.4 per cent.

But what the numbers really meant was this: For every 100, 000 people in the suburbs, 206 were victims of violent crimes. In the large cities the number was 1,048.

In the residential, middle class suburbs in the New York metropolitan area, violence is so relatively rare that local po lice spend only a small amount of their time on those crimes, compared to crimes against property.

“Violence? Gosh, it's so rare here it's like asking me how many rabies cases we've had in the last 20 years,” said Chief Stephan Barran of the Green wich, Conn., police. “More and more people are out walking at night, for their health.”

His comment was echoed in varying degrees by law‐en forcement officers in a number of suburban towns in West chester, Nassau, Suffolk and Bergen Counties, as well as by those who take, a broader view of the nation's crime problems.

That is not to say that subur ban police have nothing to do, or that residents are not wor ried about crimes. Burglary, which has been increasing for years and is now at epidemic proportions in many areas, is the serious crime that con sumes the most local police time and attracts the most at tention.

The burglar‐alarm business is booming in many of the areas suburbs. Although violence is rarely a component of burglary, and most burglar‐alarm owners do not even turn the machines on as long as they are in the house, the possibility of a vio lent confrontation with a bur glar is ever present and fright ening.

700 Burglaries Expected

“In 14 years on this force, I can't recall an act of violence associated with a burglary,” said Lieut. George, Calcagnini, chief of detectives in York town, a northern Westchester community that expects to re cord more than 700 burglaries this year.

The figure will be up from 600 burglaries in 1971, a year when 21 crimes against the person were committed in Yorktown.

“Years ago, we had none at all, so I guess you could say there's been an increase in vio lence,” Lieutenant Calcagnini said. He noted that most of the violence occurred between people who were already ac quainted.

Numbers themselves are of ten more misleading than use ful in attempting to arrive at a complete picture of suburban crime. Percentage increases that appear startling often rest on very small numerical basis.

Suffolk County, for example, experienced a 13 per cent in crease in forceable rape in 1971, but, expressed another way, that percentage repre sents an increase of 10 rapes— from 73 to 83 — in a year in which the county's popula tion increased by 22,363 peo ple to 1,149,393.

On a larger scale, the F.B.I. report for 1971 showed that the 7.5 per cent increase in vio lent crime in the cities amounted to 31,000 cases, while the 13.4 per cent rise in the suburbs represented only 12,000 crimes — and the subur ban population outnumbers the big‐city population by 56.9‐mil lion to 42.6‐million.

Another misleading aspect of crime statistics is the inability of over‐all “suburbant” figures to differentiate between resi dential suburbia and those areas whose urban character would be obvious were they not dwarfed by a major city.

In Westchester County, Yon kers, which is on the New York City line and contains a quarter of the county's population, ac counted for nearly one‐third of the county's 293 assaults, near ly one‐half of the 439 robberies, and five out of the 16 homicides the first six months of 1972 Compared with the first six months of 1971, Yonkers showed modest decreases in crimes against property and modest increases in crimes of violence.

Violent crime was up for the county as a whole, but, accord ing to Westchester County Sheriff Daniel F. McMahon, al most all the increase occurred in the county's cities.

Suffolk County has also ex perienced increases in violent crimes, with assault up from 285 cases in 1970 to 378 in 1971, and armed robbery up from 578 to 691. Most of the increase occurred in the four most highly urbanized towns — Babylon, Islip, Huntington and Smithtown, according to John Barry, the county police commissioner.

Highway Robberies

Many suburban areas have noted increases in armed rob beries of gas stations, motels, restaurants, and other business establishments, often near high way exits away from residen tial areas.

But street crime remains rare except for the run‐down central areas of such suburban cities as Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle, or Bridgeport, Conn. Actually, in Bridgeport, the number of assaults dropped from 99 to 69 during the first six months of 1972, a decrease that Joseph Walsh, the police superintendent, attributes to the creation of a new 43‐mem ber Housing Authority police force.

Little research has been done on patterns of suburban crime, although two studies now un der way should contribute val uable insights. In Westchester, the Council of Social Agencies has a $9,000 grant from the Federal Law Enforcement As sistance Administration to cor relate crime statistics in each of the county's 205 census tracts with the social charac teristics of each tract.

And the United States Cen sus Bureau, in cooperation with the Justice Department, is con ducting interviews with a se lected sample of 150,000 house holds for the first of what it plans as a series of “crime vic timization” studies.

One reason for the low rates of street crime in the residen tial suburban areas may simply be logistic, a reflection of sub urban living patterns.

“We don't have the oppor tunity for that kind of crime,” said Thomas Facelle, the chief assistant District Attorney in Westchester. “In the city, there is that two‐ or three‐block no man's land between the subway and home. Here, people leave their office and drive right into their garage. There's no street crime because no one is on the street.”

According to the F.B.I., kill ings within the family accounted for one‐fourth of all, murders in 1971, and another 40 per cent of the murders were the results of arguments, usually usually between people who al ready knew one another.

There is no doubt that fear of crime is growing in the sub urbs, probably faster than the crime rate. Four years ago, a study comparing suburban and slum areas of Baltimore found that the suburban residents were five times more likely to be afraid of crime, but actually five times less likely to, become victims of crimes than the slum residents.

That, situation, if not the ex act figure, seems to apply to many areas of the New York metropolitan area as well.

Marvin Wolfgang, the well known criminologist, says there are three reasons why the fear of crime in the suburbs out strips the reality.

First, he said in a recent telephone interview from his office at the University of Pennsylvania, the rate of crime increase actually has been greater in the suburbs. Al though the numbers are modest, rising crime is a reality.

The second reason is the in crease in drug‐related offenses, particularly frightening to sub urban parents.

Third, he said, the knowledge that crimes such as burglary are often committed by people from outside the community creates the special fear of fall ing victim to “invaders from the outside,” a fear of random attacks.

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A version of this archives appears in print on October 9, 1972, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: VIOLENT CRIMES RISING IN SUBURBS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe